


broken crown

by bladeCleaner



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Manipulation, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 12:16:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3208811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bladeCleaner/pseuds/bladeCleaner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s read enough stories to know how gods die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	broken crown

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [as her city burns](https://archiveofourown.org/works/114025) by [dellaluce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dellaluce/pseuds/dellaluce). 



She knows it well: she’s supposed to be steadfast, enduring, never faltering. The hero that ends up dying. She knows all her fairytales by heart, she used to scribble princesses in the margins and knights and blind seers and boys in blue capes. She used to love the image of her in a frilly gold dress but at the end of the day she’s hard too. Not in the way Rose and Dave are hard, sharp-tongued, silver steel, words that play their own chess games.

She’s read enough stories to know how gods die. Hard. Fast. Forever. Never.

Ichor, gold blood.

They’re playing a game, they’re playing at gods and she’s definitely going to win.

She knows all about charm. Eclectic, small, languid-Rose looks like the etiquette version of charm, slow and steady. She’s always been different.

Jade knows herself. She knows herself, because she’s loud and messy and her boundaries are very low, which can be annoying. She doesn’t care a whit for dignity. She’s slackened rope, Rose is trying so very hard to be silken skin. She knows how to play the game. Sometimes she’ll arch her neck a little far and a few strands will fall on the back of her neck when there are people behind her. Rose is preserved beauty, under a bell jar.

They find Jade lying upside down on a staircase, the sunlight streaming through the window just where her feet are as she reads a physics textbook. Her grins are sloppy. Her hair always a mess, blowaway strands and there’s freckles dotted across her olive skin. She once entertained the idea of dreadlocks, but reasoned her friends would protest.

She can play the long game and she’s friendly, too. Not so much that it scares people; but enough that she can eventually become the gravitational center of a room once people come in.

Sometimes she turns the mystery on. A hand by Rose’s ear, her buck-toothed comedy in a badly concealed smirk:

do you want to play a game!!!

If there are muppets about to fall upon my head from the ceiling, I assure you, my declination will be swift, and also possibly a limb to your derriere.

oh noooo

She’s got plans. She’s always got plans.

Sometimes she sees Dave’s brother looking at her strangely. His orange eyes glinting with keen interest. A detached curiosity.

One day when they’re both alone in Dave’s living room-waiting for him to come down-he sets down his bowl of cereal and says, “I appreciate the training.”

“Huh?”

He smiles, a sliver of lips.

"He’ll make a fine Knight, you know.”

She smiles, a slab of mouth.

“I admire your handiwork, as well.”

“They’re all utterly besotted to you. Was that your intention?”

She shrugs. Careless. Carefree. Everything Dirk seems to lack. “If anything, it’ll certainly help when the time comes.”

She wants him to ask the question, the question she can never answer. Have you lived this day before?

She’s lived so many times. She’s died so many times. Same difference.

She’s got plans for her players, and when the time comes, they will _yield._


End file.
